Sony has started charging PS3 developers to host additional “downloadable content”, or DLC, for their games on the PlayStation Network. In doing so, Sony has added an extra cost for developers not incurred by the same games on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Xbox Live service.
Will this lead to developers choosing to host more content on the Microsoft Xbox 360′s online service than the Sony PS3′s? Almost certainly.
The new terms for Sony’s PS3 PlayStation Network, according to MTV’s Multiplayer blog, are that for each gigabyte of content downloaded, a games company must pay Sony 16 cents. This applies for the first 60 days for free content (like game demos), but in perpetuity for paid-for content (such as map packs, and add-ons such as Fallout 3′s The Pitt, or Grand Theft Auto IV’s The Lost And Damned expansion – although both are exclusive to Microsoft Xbox 360′s Xbox Live anyway).
16 cents for each gigabyte of data may not sound like much for Sony PS3 developers to bear. But a 1GB demo, downloaded one million times, would cost a games company $160,000. Capcom’s recent Resident Evil 5 demo was around 1GB in size and was downloaded over four million times by users of the Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360.
A Sony PS3 spokesperson told MTV: “We foresee no change in the high quality or quantity of demos and games available” on the PlayStation Network. But Multiplayer points out that a Call Of Duty: World At War demo is available for the Microsoft Xbox 360 on Xbox Live, but not for Sony PS3 gamers on the PlayStation Network. That could be a sign that games companies are already stripping back content for Sony’s PS3.
Multiplayer has also spoken to three companies who had negative views on the fee (anonymously). One said: “It definitely makes us think about how we view the distribution of content related to our games when it is free for us to do it on Xbox Live, or any other way, than on Sony’s platform.”
Of course, the piece also points out that all Sony is doing is passing bandwidth costs to games companies on the PS3, rather than games consumers (which Microsoft does with its annual charge for Xbox Live).
The fear now is which downloadable content may not make it to the Sony PS3 going forward. While Sony’s own games and exclusives clearly will remain (Killzone 2 extra content, LittleBigPlanet maps, for example), will Resident Evil 5′s new multiplayer modes, or the Prince Of Persia epilogue, or Tomb Raider: Underworld’s Beneath The Ashes?
Out now | £varies | Sony
